Tourism Jasper has joined forces—and funds—with Parks Canada to create a brand new position that will enhance the park’s experiential tourism offer and ease some of the pain associated with planning events and festivals in Jasper.
On Oct. 9, the two organizations signed a three-year contribution agreement that will see each pay $50,000 a year toward a experiential product and event development specialist. Over three years that amounts to $300,000.
“What is really forward thinking and exciting about this partnership is that the matching funds are also to help develop experiential product and events. The human resource is a full-time position for the next three years and in addition to that there is an opportunity for the funds to help grow our community and destination with product development,” explained Mary Darling, CEO of Tourism Jasper.
The creation of the position is an advancement of the Jasper Event Tourism Strategy, completed by Expedition Management Consulting in December 2013.
That strategy was undertaken by Tourism Jasper, Parks Canada, the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce and the Municipality of Jasper to explore new ways of more effectively and efficiently delivering tourism events, with the goal of increasing economic activity within the park and town.
In order to continue moving forward with the strategy, the steering committee—which is made up of members from each of the participating organizations—recognized the need for a paid employee.
“You need to have some resources to be able to truly advance, or make that next step and leap forward,” said Supt. Greg Fenton, following the signing of the agreement. “That’s why we [Parks Canada] agreed to throw some money on the table and work together to staff the position with Tourism Jasper.”
Although there isn’t yet a job description, Fenton explained that the person hired for the position will be a “go-to” for event and festival development and organization.
“They’re the person that’s going to connect you,” added Darling. “They’ll know something is happening and communicate it out and try to grow it with other businesses, saying: ‘this is happening, what can you do around it?’”
To help with the implementation of the strategy, the provincial government has also kicked in some funding, which came in the form of a grant and will allow the steering committee to bring back its consultant to work on some of the other recommendations.
“There’s a huge benefit to bringing in our expert consultant,” explained Darling. “They can help us train our staff so that when that consulting contract is finished, we are set up for success and we can continue to move forward because we’ve been trained by outside sources that fully understand events and festivals as an entire destination and community.”
The event tourism strategy is broken up into multiple stages. Currently, the steering committee is working on the recommendations within the six to eight month period. Those include everything from hiring human resources—like a new experiential product and event development specialist—to establishing and developing criteria for events and festivals within the community.
That criteria will include a terms of reference to identify the different levels of support the Jasper community might be willing to give.
Darling admitted that implementing the strategy is an involved process that doesn’t come quickly. But, she said, she’s confident the steering committee is going about it in the right way.
“We could have gone at lightning speed, trying to implement things, but there’s a lot of work that goes into the fun things—perhaps that work isn’t as fun as the fun stuff, but if we don’t do that work it’s not going to be as successful,” she said.
Nicole Veernan
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